


There's Got to Be a Morning After

by hellostarlight20



Series: We Are Never Alone [8]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Aftermath, F/M, NSFW, Romance, Ten/Rose romance, Ten/Rose smut, Ten/Rose talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 23:20:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4198881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellostarlight20/pseuds/hellostarlight20
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aftermath from To Be or Not to Be. The 4 of them went to refuel the TARDIS, but only 2 of them returned. Rose and the Doctor try to move forward without the nearly crippling fear of letting each other go. But what about Martha and Jack?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Forest of Cheem. Quiet, peaceful, and just the place for all 4 of them to figure things out. Right. Warnings for language and the aftermath of my Family of Blood rewrite To Be or Not To Be.

The Doctor looked around the kitchen. Their normal smooth synchronicity now lay shattered on a horse farm in Kent. Even the day of their ill-fated visit to Silous, before the hunters and before the Chameleon Arch and before Broad Oak, the four of them moved around the kitchen in an easy dance.

Now, Martha didn’t look at Jack, who did nothing but look at Martha. The once bright and energetic friendship the four of them shared had crumbled.

Considering the disdain he’d once carried for such things as this, for the problems that couldn’t be left behind and the domestic arguments he’d rather avoid, at this moment, all the Doctor wanted was a good fight to clear the air and get back to the way things were.

Oh how far the mighty have fallen.

Or maybe he was just getting old.

No, he knew the problem. He’d grown accustomed to having this; to having the family and the closeness and the friendship on his ship. He’d grown to enjoy their morning ritual of making breakfast and eating together; of talking over dinner about their latest trip or where they wanted to see next.

Of moving between stove and oven and sink and table like it was nothing, like it was choreographed when it had simply been born of closeness and companionship and familiarity.

The silence in the kitchen was killing him. Rose was a faint buzz of reassurance in the back of his mind, but even she’d somehow managed to block most of her emotions. And the Doctor didn’t know why or understand her need to.

She’d wanted time after her human husband John Harkness and the Doctor had promised her that. But even after his regeneration, she’d never been so closed off. Now, after her nightmares, she didn’t talk, just held herself stiff and flinched from even his barest touch.

He didn’t want to push her, but she was so unwilling to talk, to tell him what happened, what bothered her, hell, she didn’t even hold his hand anymore! The Doctor looked down at his hand, and flexed his fingers as if she’d miraculously wrap her own around his.

Empty.

What had happened to them?

Running an agitated hand through his hair, the Doctor looked at the kitchen again. Martha sat at the table, spine rigid but so closed in on herself. Jack looked as if he had no hope of every talking to Martha again and barely smiled, let alone flirted. Neither would say what had happened to bring them to this point.

With a sigh, the Doctor sat at the table and took a bite of toast. Contrary to what his Very Advanced Time Lord Taste Buds™ said, it tasted like ash. The silence breathed around them, haunting and hurt; a living thing that threatened to suffocate them all.

For once, he had no words to fill the void.

 ********  
Rose sat on the roughly cut bench and stared out over the beautiful expanse. She hadn’t slept well the night before, despite the soothing hum of the TARDIS and the comforting dip of their bed as the Doctor climbed in beside her and wrapped his arms around her. He’d stayed with her through the entire night, but she’d tossed and turned and risen much earlier than normal.

Neither had said a word about it.

For the last several days, they’d parked on a cliff, high atop the Mountains of Sylvana with no company as far as the eye could see. It was a quiet, peaceful place, and Rose breathed deeply of the fresh air and tried desperately to feel some of that serenity.

Her fingers played with her marriage pendant and her wedding ring. She shifted on the bench as if it wasn’t the most comfortable wooden seat she’d ever sat on. Her mind raced round and round with thoughts she had no control over and fears that refused to be ignored.

John and the Doctor.  
The Doctor and John.

The men (man) she loved and loves and will always love. The similarities and differences and how the hell had she thought opening the watch would magically make this all better? Would make things go back to the way they were?

Stupid and foolish and naïve.

She’d killed John. Had used Martha to manipulate him into opening the watch and she hadn’t even been there to catch him. Hadn’t been there when she’d killed the man (human) she’d loved. Hadn’t been there for his transformation because she’d been too cowardly to watch.

So she’d had Martha do it, with some pathetic excuse about watching Torchwood.

Round and round and she wanted to run and scream and push her lover against the TARDIS corridor and fuck him until neither of them could breathe. Or all she could breathe in was him. And she wanted to run as far away from him as she could until her mind stopped, just _stopped_!

“It’s beautiful here.”

Jack sat next to her, long legs stretched out in front of him in as relaxed a pose as he could affect. It didn’t fool Rose. He was as uncomfortable and wound up and jittery as she. They all were.

“Yeah,” she said softly and curled into his side, the move as automatic as taking the Doctor’s (John’s) hand.

_(Rose distinctly heard her first Doctor’s scoff. “He’s a bit pretty, Rose.” She noticed, the universe noticed Jack, but it hadn’t mattered. Because Jack wasn’t her Doctor and her Doctor was the only one she wanted.)_

Jack wound his arm around her shoulders and shuddered out a breath. “What was I like?” he asked softly, and Rose wondered if he didn’t want to mar the peacefulness here or if he didn’t really want to know.

“On Broad Oak?” Rose asked though she didn’t need the clarification. But she felt Jack’s nod anyway. “Quiet,” she said, “shy. Your accent sounded just like J—the Doctor’s, it was a bit weird how much you two sounded alike.” She didn’t say how it’d thrown Martha yet another loop. “Not this dashing rough I know and love.”

He gave an obligatory laugh but it was as strained as her weak joke. “And to Martha?”

“Why aren’t you asking her?” Rose knew the answer to that. Wasn’t like any of the four of them were actually talking to each other.

He was quiet for so long Rose looked up at him. Jack’s mouth was set in a grim line, his eyes staring blindly at the view. The hand not curled around her shoulders fisted on his lap. Finally he took in a deep breath and said, “You know why.”

“You have to talk to her, Jack.”

“I’m not even sure where to begin,” he admitted.

“It was a different time,” Rose began after a moment, the constraints and the anger and the memories of 1936 and 1969 jumbling together. She returned her head to his shoulder and added, “And you were a man of that time.”

Jack ran a hand over his face and nodded, but the tension coiling his body hadn’t lessened. “I hurt her. Badly.”

“What do you remember?” Rose leaned back and frowned up at him. She took his hand and eased open his fist, squeezing his fingers. “Jo—the Doctor said he remembered everything, do you?”

“Mostly.” He shrugged. “The memories are there but they’re fuzzy, like I’m remembering a story someone told me of my childhood—I’ve heard it so many times I feel like I’m there, but it doesn’t feel like my memories.”

Rose had nothing to say, didn’t know what to say. She wanted to comfort Jack, but had yet to come to terms with her own feelings for what had happened. Same man. _Same man._

The man she loved.  
The man she killed.  
The man she made love to.  
The man she utterly submitted to.

Could she tell Jack that? He wasn’t the same man—hadn’t acted like it at least. Was quiet and shy and stood in the background of (John) the Doctor. Had he been like that before the Time Agency and 2 missing years of his memories and turning conman? She’d always thought Jack’s bombastic personality came from hiding emotions too messy and deep to deal with.

Maybe she was right. He wouldn’t be the first.

 _That_ Jack hadn’t stood up for Martha, not like he had when they were trapped in a flat with the racist landlord for months waiting for Sally Sparrow to find the TARDIS and send it back to them in whatever time-wimey loop they’d created. What had happened when Martha made him open the watch?

Martha hadn’t said anything and Rose hadn’t wanted to pry. However, with the way things were in the TARDIS and the grating tension pounding through all of them, she was afraid it was merely a matter of time before things broke. Broke beyond their fixing.

Resting her head on his shoulder, Rose kept quiet. “I don’t know, Jack.”

She breathed deeply of the fresh air and the damp earth and the timelessness of their spot. Content for the moment to curl into her friend’s side and ignore their problems, Rose rested her head on his shoulder and looked out at the green expanse.

“What about you? You and the Doctor?” he asked.

“What about us?” She kept her voice low and soft and as devoid of emotion as she could manage. Rose already knew his real question.

“He—John—made no secret of loving you,” Jack said as if he really needed to explain. “Why are you hiding out here when he’s in there?”

Because I killed him. I forced him to open the watch and wasn’t there to catch him.  
Because I killed John, the man I love, and can’t face the Doctor—the man I love.  
Because I’m a coward.

Rose sighed. “I just need a little time,” she said, repeating what she’d told the Doctor since they’d taken care of the hunter possessed Torchwood men.

Jack snorted. “Rose, I know you too well. You’ve never needed time when it came to him. You always knew.”

She wanted to tell him about her hesitancy after his regeneration. About Reinette and France and the time and space (no pun there) she’d needed, but this was so very, very different. No comparison.

“I’m scared,” she whispered.

“He loves you. No matter what.” Jack was so adamant, she blinked up at him for a moment.

“I know,” she sighed and released some more tension. “But things were so different for all those weeks. And I don’t know what was him—the Doctor—and what was John, all made up by the TARDIS.”

A lie. Slipped in their conversation so easily. A lie to her friend. More, a lie to herself. She didn’t believe that lie, wondered if Jack did. Wondered if the Doctor (John) would.

“I don’t think anything about either of us was made up by the TARDIS,” Jack said softly. “I think whatever and whoever we were on Broad Oak was always inside us.”

She stayed quiet for another long minute before asking once more, “What happened, Jack?”

After a long while, Jack sucked in a deep breath. “I messed up, Rose,” he said faintly as if the very words themselves hurt to be spoken aloud. “And I’m afraid I’ve lost her. I can argue that man wasn’t me, but I’m afraid, in my gut, that he was.”

He scrubbed a hand down his face, but his gaze remained fixed on their view. Shaking his head, Jack said even quieter, “She asked me to open the watch. To trust her. I didn’t. Couldn’t. Maybe I was scared, but I…I didn’t.”

“Do you love Martha?” Rose asked but didn’t move.

Jack’s hand tightened on hers and he released a hard breath that seemed to deflate him. “Yes.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avoidances—there are many ways to avoid things and conversations and people, even when you’re standing right next to them. (Slight talk of pregnancy and non-miscarriages between Martha and the Doctor but I promise you, Rose didn’t have a miscarriage)

The Doctor read through the notes and journal entries Martha had kept during their forced exile. He tracked Rose’s progress during those 45 days in Martha’s handwriting and vowed never to leave Rose long enough that someone else needed to take care of her.

He knew she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, but things were different now. They were trying to add a baby into the mix. If he’d go after anyone who’d hurt her before, now, with the potential of his child getting hurt, he knew he’d be uncontrollable. Unstoppable.

The thought terrified him.

He couldn’t lose her, not again. He didn’t think he’d survive it. Knew he wouldn’t. Knew he’d self-destruct. And take all of creation with him.

( _Doctor! You can stop now!_ Donna’s voice, finally, finally cut through the rage and grieving anguish. He looked at her, watched her flinch, knew he’d almost gone too far. Knew he wouldn’t have cared if he had. Knew he didn’t care. But then Rose’s voice echoed over time and distance. What she’d said to him when he’d been grieving her inevitable death before they really had a chance at a life together. _Doctor, if we don’t take a chance now, then what’s the point? That’s not living. I know you’re scared, I am, too. But I love you and I want to spend whatever time we have left with you._ )

At the moment, Rose was keeping a mental, emotional, and physical distance between them. Not that he knew what to say to bridge the rift, but he wanted to. More than anything he wanted her in his arms.

Though he knew she was less than a kilometer outside the TARDIS doors, he wanted to race from Martha and hold Rose. And run. Yes, run. Not from Rose, but _with her_. Run like they used to do, hand-in-hand, laughing and carefree and _together_.

Before.

Not with the weight of this chasm between them, the yawning pit of John Harkness and a month and a half separated and loving two men—the same man.

Jealousy speared the warmth and he didn’t know what to think or do. So he’d avoided and dragged Martha into the infirmary and read everything she’d written about Rose and her health, and tried not to think about what he’d done to his wife. Or to Martha.

“I don’t think it was a miscarriage,” Martha said.

She didn’t look at him, but focused on the floor where her trainers scuffed back and forth on the tile. The Doctor wanted to ask about her, but hadn’t the words to do that, either. Hell, he couldn’t even ask after Rose, and he was more open with her than anyone in his very long lives.

“No.” He stopped and cleared his throat. “No, you’re right. Just heavy bleeding, no doubt a byproduct from the treatments.”

Straightening, he tucked his glasses into his jacket pocket and offered her a smile. Emotions bubbled to the surface—gratitude and gratefulness for all she’d done for he and Jack. More for how she’d been there for Rose. For her friendship and her constant companionship.

He swallowed them down, unsure how to actually say them. Thank you sounded entirely inadequate though he’d said that several times already.

“I’m—I’m going to do some things in here.” The Doctor waved around the warmly lighted room. “If you want to go out, explore Cheem…”

Martha shook her head and kept her eyes averted. “No, I think I’ll stay in.” She swallowed hard and finally raised her gaze to meet his. Her usually expressive face was carefully blank. “I’ll maybe study. Still got exams to pass.”

She tried to smile, but it fell short. Blimey, he was no good at this. But Martha clearly didn’t want to talk to Rose, and one would have to be dead not to see the way she was avoiding Jack.

“Martha…um.” He tugged his ear and looked up at the ceiling. “You don’t have to…I mean Jack won’t…” he sighed.

But she smiled and the Doctor felt something ease around his hearts. “I just need a little time,” she whispered, far softer than he expected. She swallowed hard and when she spoke again it was stronger. “I need to figure out what I want to do. Me.”

Leaning against the counter, he folded his arms and frowned. “Don’t want to be a doctor?” he asked, surprised.

“Oh, I do.” She nodded empathically. “But I—it’s like I’m standing at a fork in my life. I can stay with you, travel, learn all about alien medicine.” She paused and shot him a look. “Though no more trips to medical museums for a while, okay?”

He obligingly laughed but otherwise remained silent. The air was thick with words, and if he’d learned anything from Rose it was that sometimes it was best to wait. Not fill the silence. No matter he only liked the silence when he was with Rose, the Doctor gave Martha space.

“This was always supposed to end, you know?” It wasn’t a question. It hurt anyway.

“I knew this wasn’t permanent, this wasn’t forever. But then Rose came back, and Jack found you, and it was like—” Martha shook her head and grinned and it wasn’t a sad or wistful grin but the happy, contented one he’d grown used to.

“Like an extended vacation with your best mates in the universe,” she said firmly. “Running and traveling, and… and even before that, I’d learned so much. I loved it…I did…but…”

She trailed off again. The Doctor took a deep breath and sought out Rose through their connection.

It was faint, not purposely blocked off, not entirely at least. The walls she’d erected in her need to deal with everything were still high, though. Her love, however, pulsed clearly through their connection. No matter that she wouldn’t let him touch her or that she hadn’t said anything about his time as John.

“If you want to take a break, Martha,” he said with more understanding than he thought he’d had in lifetimes, “you can. Go back to your flat and take your exams. I can even talk to Alistair, see if UNIT has a position for you. Medical division, of course.”

His lips pulled into a slight grin, but the answering smile on Martha’s face told him this was the right thing to say. Rose was definitely rubbing off on him.

“And after?” she asked, hesitant. “If I want to travel with you two again? And I mean to be there for Rose’s pregnancy,” she added hastily, firmly, clearly. “When it’s time, I do want that.”

“Of course!” He grinned.

He didn’t want Martha to leave (everyone left) but he understood her desire to find her own path (they all did and it was never with him). It was what he’d done centuries ago, after all. (Rose hadn’t left.) Full of energy now, he whirled from the infirmary and toward the library.

“I’ll try to find some medical texts in English, or in a language the TARDIS can translate.” He stopped and mumbled to himself, “Or maybe I’ll translate the pertinent parts for you myself.”

“Oh, I have some.”

“What do you mean?” he asked, confused, and stopped in the middle of the hallway.

Martha gave him a strange look as if he was being deliberately obtuse. “The TARDIS showed me where they were once she was powered up and all. Literal English translations of Gallifreyan pregnancies. A bunch of dusty old tomes, you have there.”

The Doctor frowned. “What do you mean, _the TARDIS showed you_?”

His ship had often been helpful, in a vague directional way toward companions. But She’d never, ever translated Gallifreyan. Didn’t need to, it was his language, and Hers, too, he supposed if such a thing as a written and verbal form of communication could be associated with Her—no need for a translation.

“I-I don’t know.” Martha shrugged again. “She just did. I thought they were Gallifreyan translations; they talked about Time Lords and Rassilon, the Other, and Omega and about regeneration and all.” She shot him an amused smile. “Time tots? Really, Doctor?”

He blinked, but allowed himself to be sidetracked. The TARDIS continued to hum serenely in his mind, She didn’t sound off or sick in any way. Or even smug. She was simply there, his one constant companion. Maybe She wanted this child, too, and thought or knew or wanted Martha there for the birth.

“Time Children just doesn’t have the same ring,” he said with a grin. “Now then, do you want to go home now?” he asked. “Or do you want to explore Cheem a little?”

“A planet full of sentient trees?” She laughed. “Home can wait another few days.”

 ********  
Rose lay curled in their bed, back toward him.

From his place leaning against the closed door, the Doctor looked at her, longing and arousal and the sheer need to _touch_ her thrumming through his system. His fingers tingled with it, and while he desperately longed to bury himself in her willing body, at the moment, all he wanted was to _touch_ her again.

Hold her.

They’d spent another night on Cheem, but none of them had ventured further than the overlook. The atmosphere on the TARDIS was clogged with unspoken words and tension like pea soup. Pea soup—bleck. Nasty stuff that. But the analogy was sound; pea soup was definitely thick and foggy.

“I know you’re there.” Her soft voice floated over him like a caress. “You don’t have to hide.”

The Doctor started from his thoughts on pea soup and looked at the bed. Rose had rolled over, clad in nothing more than short sleep shorts and a thin sleeveless top. Not one of his shirts, like she normally wore. Or had worn. Before.

He had images-memories-visions of her naked in his arms as they slept. A sheet tossed over them in the bed she now lay in. Curled around each other beneath the heavy blankets in their cottage on Broad Oak. His fingers twitched to feel her, to make love to her.

More than that. So much more.

Starved for her touch, his skin itched. It had been a handful of days and a lifetime. He knew the fading mark on curve of her shoulder was from his mouth and teeth and passion, and yet he longed to mark her again. As the Doctor.

“I didn’t know if you wanted—I mean I wasn’t sure I’d be…” he trailed off and rubbed the back of his neck, exhaling deeply. “Rose.”

She held out her hand and with a willingness he’d never questioned, the Doctor crossed the room.

“I just need time,” she sighed even as he kicked off his chucks and tossed his suit jacket behind him, uncaring where it landed. He rolled his shirt sleeves just past his elbows and leaned against the headboard.

“I know.” He didn’t know, didn’t understand. Wanted to strip down and feel her against every naked inch of his own skin. But he gathered her close to him and tucked her head beneath his chin, both of them entirely too dressed for what he truly wanted.

The sigh that escaped him was as much from the feel of her body against his as it was frustration that he didn’t feel comfortable enough to strip down and climb into bed with her. Every night since returning to the Doctor from John Harkness, he’d slipped on a pair of boxers and a t-shirt. 

He didn’t know what else to say. How to explain that John loved her with the same depth and limitless passion he did. Or that every thought and every touch and every kiss John gave her he also felt and wanted and remembered.

“When you were John,” she said slowly, fingers light on his oxford directly over his marriage tattoos, “why didn’t you…”

She pulled back just slightly, still not looking at him, and licked her lips. The Doctor followed the movement of her tongue but kept still, his fingers gentle over the back of her head, along the nape of her neck.

“You never mentioned the tattoos.”

He hadn’t? Had he, as John, known they were there? The Doctor thought so, but they were such a fact, a specific part of his own memories, he couldn’t be certain.

“I think it was a product of the time,” he eventually said. Her fingers continued to trace the unseen tattoos, the circles and loops that made up his language and hers. His true name and her joined indelibly together. Forever. “Humans, especially during that time, didn’t exactly have tattoos. Let alone ones in another language.”

Rose licked her lips and her breath hitched. She started to speak but then sat up. She still didn’t look at him as her fingers slid down his arm to his wedding band. Light as a feather, her fingers traced the silver of his ring, the Gallifreyan words around the band.

_My Doctor._

“John was so different from you,” she began so quietly even his advanced hearing strained to make out her words. “He was publically affectionate and unafraid to let the world know we were together. How much he loved me.”

“Do-do you doubt how much I love you?” he asked, incredulous, scared. It shattered through him like lightning and froze him in place. He’d shown in her in all the ways he knew how. Through physical and mental touch, across their link and with his body. In a ceremony before their friends. In the tattoos and the rings they both wore.

He’d married her to show the universe they belonged together. To show her how much he loved and needed her. Terrified of losing her? Yes. Terrified one of the many enemies he, or the Time Lords, had made over the years finding her and using her against him? Hell yes.

Terrified she’d come to her senses and leave him? He didn’t even want to think about that.

“I know,” she whispered, still refusing to meet his gaze. “But it was so different with him. You. With…when you were…”

Rose blew out a breath in frustration, but a small, very slight, smile played around her lips.

His hearts stumbled and he caught her face between his hands. “Rose I am never, have never been, and will never be ashamed of you. Terrified for your safety, for what you’ll do to protect…” me. To keep me safe. “Protect those you love, but _never_ ashamed.”

He kissed her. The Doctor knew she wanted to wait, to take things slowly, and he remembered promising her all the time she needed. Remembered promising her that once upon a time before, when he was new and they were still finding their footing after having such a short time together.

Maybe he should’ve told her he never planned on leaving her then. Before he’d regenerated.  
Maybe he should’ve told her she was everything in his life, his world, his universe.  
Maybe he should’ve told her in Kyoto that he wanted to spend forever—his, hers, theirs, all of the above—with her.

Little things he should’ve said and done, but hadn’t taken the time because he’d thought they’d had his entire regeneration and her entire life. That he’d spend that life with her and after…well, Rose Tyler made him a better man. Not just this body, and his last one, but she made the man who was the Doctor better.

He drew the kiss out, let his tongue play with hers, his teeth nip her lower lip, his senses drink her in like a starving-drowning-suffocating man. His fingers combed through her hair, letting the rich texture of it sooth at least one sense.

“I love you,” he breathed against her mouth, through their bond. “Nothing can change that. Ever.”

His mind slipped easily into hers, welcoming and comforting and warm and encompassing. He knew their bond hadn’t been severed when he’d been John, but it’d been fuzzy, like a favorite song on the radio that wouldn’t quite tune properly. Now, the Doctor connected them fully and spoke directly to her.

The primal part connected to him; her soul touched his; her arms wrapped around him.

Rose whimpered, and he knew it was from his touch and his presence and his essence. Her hands combed through his hair, nails scratching against his scalp, lips pressed harder to his.

She whispered his name, the one he was given at birth and had later renounced. Whether she’d done so aloud or through their link, he didn’t know but it wrapped around him and tugged, hard. He’d always hated his name, but from her it was the third most beautiful sound in the universe.

Arousal burst through him, electricity along his skin and burning through their link and throbbing through his cock. But he’d made her a promise and he intended to keep it. Slowly he pulled back, his lips softer on hers, his hands tracing the vertebrae in the back of her neck. He kept their link open, wide open, for her.

Always for her.

“Tomorrow we’ll take a walk through Cheem, all right?” he whispered against her lips. “The four of us. We’ll explore their forests and enjoy the fresh air. How does that sound?”

He felt her smile against his mouth, but Rose didn’t move. “It sounds perfect.”

He ached for her, but pulled back and looked at her. Her brandy colored eyes watched him with a hooded, not quite closed off, expression, but their link welcomed him. Surrounded him and reassured him.

“I love you, Rose,” he said and watched the knowledge, the truth of that statement shine brightly in her eyes. “This body, my last, my next, as the Doctor or as John Harkness.”

He frowned at the name and Rose snickered. He’d use that name from now on if it made her smile. But he also felt her flinch, a faint tug of—guilt? grief? sorrow?—through their link she quickly masked.

“I know. But it took me a bit to get used to you being John.” Rose took a deep breath and avoided his gaze.

Her cheeks flushed and he wondered what she had to be embarrassed about with him.

“Can you just hold me tonight?” she asked, eyes still averted, but unable to hide the quiet desperation in her tone.

“I’ll hold you every night,” he promised.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth between.

Rose woke with a strangled scream caught in her throat.

Her mum stood before her—arms folded and glaring. Jackie was furious, on a level Rose had never seen, let alone experienced herself. _Oh, you’re alive? Couldn’t even be bothered to send a text across the hole in the universal walls to let me know?_

**Guilt.**

Jackie morphed into Mickey. Angry and hard and unlike Rose had ever seen him. _Are you even trying to stop the stars from going out? Or are you so lost in the Doctor you forgot the fate of all the universes?_

**Culpability.**

John stood before her, dressed in his work trousers with a thick wool sweater and the cap he sometimes wore. His hands fell casually by his sides, and at first glance looked as if he waited.

His eyes, the soft brown she loved, had hardened, and the look on his face was not loving or amused or content. It was hard and menacing and sent a shiver down her spine, chilling her straight through and freezing her into immobility.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. His unspoken words screamed across the silent distance.

_You coward. You killed me and you didn’t have the courage to be there yourself._

**Shame.**

“Rose?”

John’s—the Doctor’s—voice sounded soft beside her. Soft and worried and so close, so immediate, she jumped. Jerked away from his voice as if physically burned.

“What happened?” he asked, reaching for her. “What’s wrong?”

Rose flinched, guilty for doing so and guilty that she had to. Oh, God, had he seen? Across their bond, had he seen her nightmare? Did he know everything she hid?

She hid so many things from him, so many memories and feelings for him (John) from his time as John that Rose didn’t even know where to begin. Her cowardly act of using Martha to bring the Doctor back? How she’d killed one man (lover, love) for another?

Or how she’d loved it when he’d taken her, the hard possessive man John had been and how desperately she’d loved every second of it.

“I’m fine,” Rose managed. Lied. “Just a nightmare.”

The Doctor tried to gather her to him, but she resisted. “Rose, you’re not fine,” he snapped.

Curling in on herself, she brought her knees to her chest and looked over at him. For the first time since leaving Broad Oak, Rose really looked at the Doctor. He looked tired and drawn, his hair messier than normal, his eyes shadowed and haunted.

She hadn’t seen them that haunted since her return and it slammed through her. She was the cause of that look.

Yet another layer of guilt ate at her, clawed and tore and pierced her heart. This was her fault. All her fault. She hadn’t been able to say no to John, had loved every single erotic touch he’d given her, every resistant barrier he’d broken down.

Had loved him—John the human. She loved him so much—his passion for life (and her) and his plans for their future, and him. Just him. Fighting tears she squeezed her eyes closed and dug her nails into her palms. Rose took another minute, felt her lover’s gaze bore into her, and somehow found the courage to look at him.

The Doctor raked his hands through his hair, making it wilder than normal, and over his face. He let out a harsh breath and sucked in a deep one, only to let it out again. He looked tired, so very tired, and Rose wanted nothing more than to take him in her arms and hold him.

Didn’t have that right. Not any more, not after what she’d done.

“What’s wrong, my hearts?” he asked and he sounded weary. His brown eyes stabbed through her, though there was no accusation in his gaze. Just heartbreak and that hurt all the more. “Why won’t you tell me? Talk to me. Let me in.” He looked at her for a long, long moment then said in a voice that begged and pleaded and demanded and was so utterly him she nearly broke.

“Please.”

Rose had forgotten how to breathe. The Doctor had never called her _my heart_ before John, and since opening the watch and becoming the Doctor again, he hadn’t, either.

“I—” Throat dry, she tried swallowing but only felt nauseous. Rose breathed deeply—once, twice, tried not to vomit all over their bed, tried not to break down, tried, tried to hold it all in.

“Rose.” He took her hand, thumb lightly caressing the back of her knuckles.

It was such a simple, familiar touch. The gentle caress, the memory of all the times he’d taken her hand, held her hand, the absent way he’d touched her or she’d touched him. How a hand to hold had morphed into hugging and hugging into the unutterable tenderness that had grown between them during the quiet times after an adventure.

Rose broke.

She told him about her nightmares with Mickey and her mum—the accusations of not stopping the stars from going out and not finding a way to contact them. Of the guilt she carried for being so, so happy with the Doctor and wondering if Dream Mickey and Dream Jackie were right.

Had she not done enough to try and contact them? Had she not done all she could about the stars going out? Worse—had she used that as an excuse to push the Dimension Cannon project ahead? Had she used the stars going out and the universe exploding as an excuse to find her lover again?

“The stars aren’t going out here,” she said, words coming fast and hard on the heels of her shame. “And neither of us are doing much to track that are we. Or to stop it. Or to do much of anything.” The burden of saving that other universe crushed her, of trying to save it and her family there and of utterly failing.

“Except,” she added with a harsh laugh that seared her throat, “what we’ve always done: travel and make love.”

Rose wanted to stop. She didn’t want to tell him about John and those nightmares or the way her body responded to him. How she missed making love to the Doctor no matter what. Missed the long afternoons where he touched and tasted her into one orgasm after another until her body sang and begged and she was so sore and sated and satisfied after, they had to spend another day in bed, just the two of them.

How now, she wanted to feel his hand coming down hard on her bum, the backs of her thighs, the dark possessiveness John had shown. The enforced waiting, how he’d left her dangling on the precipice of arousal for hours and she’d obeyed. Eagerly obeyed.

Those words tumbled out, too.

“And I was such a coward,” Rose gasped. The truth didn’t set her free, it paralyzed her.

The Doctor gathered her to his chest, and she heard the steady double beat of his hearts, felt the gentle fingers on the back of her neck. But along their bond, Rose felt nothing. Eyes closed, defeated, she continued. Now that she’d started, she couldn’t stop. The words tumbled and raced and beat each other and her heart broke but she couldn’t stop them.

“I killed you and I wasn’t even there to catch you.”

Eyes so dry they burned, Rose took what comfort he offered, despite the emptiness from their bond and the farce of their embrace. She hated that even now she was a coward and couldn’t look him in the eyes.

“I had Martha do it,” she admitted. “I couldn’t ask you to open the watch so I had her trick you into opening it and going from John to the Doctor because I was afraid to kill one man I loved for another.”

“Rose,” he said and it sounded too even, too offhand to her heartbroken ears.

She pulled back, unable to meet his gaze. But his arms tightened around her and she swore she heard him growl. “Don’t,” he commanded. She heard the roughness in his tone and it made her pause. “Don’t you dare pull back!”

His arms tightened again and his hearts beat harder beneath her ear. Suddenly their bond burned bright and hot and Rose gasped. His love-passion-need for her marked her as surely as his body ever had.

“Don’t you understand?” the Doctor demanded. And now he did pull back, only to look her in the eyes, his own brown gaze bright with emotion. He sounded terrified.

“John loved you because I love you. Because I love you more than _anything_.” His fingers gripped her hand. “ _ **Anything**_ , Rose,” he swore.

He sucked in a deep breath but it did nothing to change the way he looked at her. A look that shot straight through to her soul and enveloped her. Made her feel loved and cherished and utterly wanton at the same time.

Same brown eyes, same fierce love across their link, same fervent-adoring- _mine_ look on his face. It was a look both the Doctor and John had given her.

“John loved you enough to do anything, too. Because he’s me and I’m him. I thought,” he paused and gently cupped her face. “I thought you knew that?”

The Doctor sighed, and Rose heard a heavy exasperation. “Why didn’t you tell me, Rose? Why didn’t you tell me?” he repeated, softer. “Rose, I don’t…” he shook his head. “I don’t hold it against you.”

“I do,” she confessed quietly. To Rose, her words sounded like a shot in their bedroom. “I promised to always be there for you,” she said. “And I wasn’t. I was too afraid to be.”

“No.” he shook his head, adamant. “Rose, no. You’re the strongest, bravest person I’ve ever met.” The words were harsh but not mean. Frustrated. Then softer, a mere whisper of breath, he admitted, “I don’t think I could’ve done the same, watched you change even if it was to save the lives of the last of a species.”

He sucked in a deep breath and tightened his hands on her face, not hard, just reassuringly there. Then his hands slipped down her neck, a light caress, and to her arms where the marriage bands were.

“And I know I couldn’t watch you open the watch.” He shook his head, fingers caressing her arms over the tattoos. “It kills me every time you’re in danger or hurt. I don’t know I could have been there to catch you.”

He smiled ruefully and she was vividly reminded of her first Doctor, which his haunted eyes and generous mouth. His words moved warmly through her, unclenching the band around her heart and easing a flood of love and acceptance through her. “Coward, me.”

“Doctor,” she said softly, haltingly. “I promised you I’d never leave you. I promised you I’d always be here. When you decided to give those hunters a choice and changed, I promised you I’d be there every step with you.”

“You were. Rose, don’t you see?” he entreated and it tugged at her heart. “You were there. You kept John sane and me sane. You protected me, me and Jack, from Torchwood, potential fascist invasions, and the hunters.”

“I left you alone and tricked Martha into making you open the watch!” She shouted at him. “Every promise, every vow I’ve ever made to you I broke that afternoon because I was too much the coward to hand you the watch myself!”

He didn’t say anything for a long, long while and Rose was terrified to tap into their link and know what he was feeling. She kept herself closed off, isolated. If this was the beginning of the end of their marriage, she didn’t want to further degrade herself by begging him—she had no right, not after deserting him like she had.

“Why do you think this is the end?” he asked, and there was a heavy thread of panic in his voice.

Maybe not as closed off as she’d hoped.

“Doctor,” she said softly, the painful lump of fear and sorrow and guilt difficult to speak around. “Every vow, every promise I made to you, to stay with you and hold your hand, to be there for you, I broke in one afternoon.”

“No.” He took her hand and threaded their fingers together. “No, Rose. You didn’t. I don’t blame you for running away.” He offered a crooked, half-smile. “I’ve run my whole life and only stopped once I found you.”

And then they’d run together.

He hadn’t needed to say the words, Rose heard them, understood them, clearly enough.

“I don’t blame you, Rose.”

“I blame myself,” she whispered. But she hadn’t moved away from him.

“Do you know what terrifies me the most?” the Doctor asked. The change of subject startled her, but Rose was used to this sort of thing and simply looked at him.

“My mum’s cooking?”

He flashed her a smile and chuckled. “No. Well,” he admitted, stretching the word out. “Not her tea. Brilliant tea, Jackie makes.” He shook his head. “No, what terrifies me the most is your compassion.”

Rose looked at him askance and waited.

“Damn it, Rose, you felt bad for a Dalek!” he shouted, the panic and terror back in his voice. His fingers tightened on hers and she felt his fear now as clearly as she’d seen it in vibrant blue eyes so many years ago.

“I’m terrified you’re going to try to help and be taken from me before I’m remotely ready.” The words were barely above a whisper, harsh and open and honest and yet so, so soft in the dim quietness of their bedroom.

If this was supposed to make her feel better, he was doing a piss poor job of it. Would either of them ever be ready for that day? But Rose swallowed and nodded. She didn’t know what to say, had no words, only wanted to wrap herself around him and hold tight. Never let him go.

Great. Now she sounded like some stalker song.

His eyes held hers, dark and pleading, but before he could speak again, Rose blurted out, “I loved John’s possessiveness.”

Damn. The last secret between them; she hadn’t meant to say that. The Doctor’s eyebrows shot up and she cursed again. But now that the last secret was out, she plunged onward. Blushing, eyes downcast, hating herself even as she remembered every delicious, dominant touch of John, Rose confessed.

“I love you,” she whispered. “And I love making love to you, the—the…just all of it. How you touch me and taste me and know my body so well.”

The Doctor ducked his head and forced her to look him in the eye. Rose’s stomach flipped, but she complied. “That was me, too.” His eyes deepened to nearly black and his voice deepened, like melted chocolate and a dark promise over her skin.

“Everything John did I not only remember, I wanted.” One hand released hers and slowly slid up her arm, over her shoulder blade, a feather light touch on her throat.

“Is that what you’re afraid of?” he asked quietly, his voice no less intense for that. “That I won’t want you because of what I did?”

Well when he put it like that…. How long had Rose told herself John was the Doctor? She’d convinced herself and now, faced with the Doctor holding all of John’s memories, she ran like a frightened animal.

“Rose.” He gently cupped her face and shifted until they knelt before each other.

It struck Rose as the same position they’d been in on their wedding night. Which was crazy, she could probably think of a dozen other times they’d faced each other, kneeling on their bed, but that one memory shone the brightest.

His lips brushed over hers, feather light and promising. “I love you. I love making you come with my hands and mouth.” Another light brush of his lips along her jaw. “I love when you ride me until I can’t think.”

His fingers traced along the column of her throat, both insubstantial and darkly promising. “I love when we can’t keep our hands off each other and when we tease to a slow build of our orgasm.”

Lips brushed over her eyelids, down one cheek, back to her own mouth. “And I love,” he said in a voice that dripped of sin and promise. “I love when I bind you to our bed and bring you to the brink of orgasm and never let you come.”

Rose shuddered, her breath hitched. Her heart stumbled and she swore he sounded exactly like John. (Same man.)

“I love,” the Doctor continued, “telling you all the dirty things I want to do to your body. All the ways I want to make you scream my name.”

“Doctor,” Rose moaned, breathless and aching.

“Look at me,” he commanded and she obeyed, opening heavy eyes to look into his nearly black ones. His hands were gentle on her face as he held her like the most precious porcelain, the rarest treasure.

“Rose, there is never a time or place or reason I’ll never want you. Do you love me?”

“Yes,” she whispered, honesty and love and her very being in that word. “More than anything.”

She saw storms flash in his gaze, triumph and fear and worlds colliding and stars being born. Over the time they’d been together, Rose had seen his gaze full of many things. Today, now, she saw them all.

It terrified her. It thrilled her. It burned through her in an arousing heat of need that made her want to pin him to the bed and ride him until neither could think. Could only feel. The look, that knowledge, made her realize the words she had to express herself in were poorly and adequate for how she felt for this amazing man.

“You terrify me, Rose,” the Doctor admitted. “I want to lock you in the TARDIS and tie you to our bed.”

Rose shuddered at that. Need and yes and oh please. She forced her eyes to open and looked into his darkly smug ones, the burning heat of want holding her to him as surely as his touch did.

“But no matter what I look like,” he promised, mouth gliding over her throat, “no matter who I regenerate into,” along her shoulder, “I will always love you.”

His mouth claimed her then, the hard possession of John and the Doctor and her first Doctor and this brilliant, wonderful, mad, sexy man she’d married. Whom she loved.

“I love you,” she confessed and kissed him back, opening herself—her mind, her body, her heart, her soul—to him. “Always.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Change, the state of flux, is a permanent feature of nature”~Heraclitus, ancient Greek philosopher. All things change.

Their walk through the Forests of Cheem was perfect.

Perfect if Martha forgot that her hand felt empty without Jack’s in it. And perfect if she ignored the way he stared at her without actually looking at her. And perfect if she completely overlooked the thick tension binding all four of them together in an odd kind of fluidity that refused to solidify.

Jealousy speared through her as the Doctor reached out for Rose’s hand. The other woman hesitated for a moment, barely a heartbeat, before slipping her hand in his and closing the distance between them. The tension hovered, closing, closing, then seemed to crack around them. It didn’t disappear, but it thinned.

Martha shook her head at her own fancifulness—she’d never been so before meeting the Doctor. Course she’d never met Shakespeare before the Doctor, either.

It took her a moment, but when she looked deep inside herself, Martha knew that yes, she was genuinely happy for her friends. Jealous they’d managed to reconcile? Yes. Jealous of the love and strength between them? Oh yes.

But not bitter. Not angry or resentful or anything like that. Sad. Sad and all right yes. Jealous. But happy for them.

Her hand ached to hold Jack’s. And her body missed his moving within hers, against hers. And her heart—oh, her heart felt as if it lay scattered around her in a thousand thousand pieces. She knew, Martha knew, that his words on Broad Oak weren’t really his, not her Jack’s. She knew that. Really.

But they hurt all the same.

Martha drew in a deep breath and pushed all that to the side. Far into the back of her mind where she didn’t have to deal with it. Because dealing with it hadn’t worked and frankly she was tired of the pain and angst and heartbreak.

But the view. Oh, the view was unequaled and she said so. “All this came from Earth?” she asked finally when the sound of their own footsteps echoing in the forest beat too loudly for her to ignore further.

“Yup!” the Doctor said and it was so close to how he used to speak when it was just the two of them, Martha felt something in her break. When she’d been jealous of Rose and when he’d been on a self-destruct vendetta and when Martha hadn’t realized how deep the Doctor’s feelings for his missing lover truly ran.

It felt so long ago. Lifetimes ago. So much had changed. Martha had changed the most, she thought as she looked over the thick vibrant forests.

“Long story,” the Doctor said and she wondered when he’d stopped caring about telling the long story. “But the quick version is that they evolved billions of years in only three and left their captives on the asteroid they’d been forced-grown. Founded this planet. Now they have land on hundreds of worlds.”

“But don’t those other planets have their own trees?” she wondered.

“If it’s anything like our Earth,” Rose said with a shrug. “Those planets probably destroyed their forests. But if you have an entire planet of forests and they agree to come into your world and restore the ecosystem…”

“And the air quality.” Martha nodded, her gaze bouncing off Rose’s to slide back to the view. “Sentient, capitalistic trees,” Martha sighed. “Still, nice to know Earth doesn’t completely destroy itself.”

“Oh, no,” the Doctor agreed softly. “You humans always manage to keep something of your heritage. Nostalgic you lot are.”

They walked on in silence, sometimes one of them asking about a certain species of tree or bird flying overhead or other animal scuttling along the tress or ground. Sometimes to stop and stare over the cliff where majestic creatures Martha couldn’t name soared far above the valley.

Martha was so acutely aware of them—of Jack—she felt it scraping along her skin and behind her eyes. They ate the picnic lunch they’d packed in a park dedicated to those Cheem who had died for some cause or other, and just as silently as they’d arrived, headed back for the TARDIS.

This wasn’t working. She needed to leave. Martha almost laughed, running was such a Doctor thing to do, but if she didn’t get out of here, didn’t get away from the clawing-choking agony of the aftermath, she wasn’t certain she’d be able to survive.

Maybe she’d take the Doctor up on his offer to help her secure a position with UNIT. Sooner rather than later.

Oh, she was a coward. Running instead of talking it out (arguing it out) with Jack.

She looked from the Doctor to Rose, holding hands and nothing more, carefully skipping over Jack. Oh, it hurt to look at him. To hear That Jack’s voice as she begged him to open the fob watch. To hear the incredulity and the disbelief in his words. His refusal.

Until Martha told Jack that John was in danger, that Rose needed his help. It broke her to see the change in him.

She’d known he wasn’t her Jack. Known he wasn’t the man who’d threatened racist landlords or blatantly held her hand even before they’d become lovers while stranded in 1969. Martha knew that and had thought she’d mostly reconciled herself with that change.

After all, That Jack had listened to her when she’d told him about the IRA Blueshirts and the weak story of how she’d overheard them plotting an invasion. That Jack had even held her after her strange nightmares, the ones Martha barely remembered now, but had terrified her then. She had thought That Jack had been coming around.

But then the hunters had taken over the men from Torchwood who were looking for Jack and she’d needed him to open the watch to be himself again and the entire world had stopped.

Jack hadn’t wanted to. No, worse—he’d refused to. He hadn’t believed her when Martha told him the truth. He hadn’t believed he wasn’t real. And Martha hadn’t known what to say, how to make him believe, how to do any of it.

Why had it been so much easier with the Doctor? Rose had been in trouble and John (the Doctor) had raced to her side.

And that was the problem: Jack had done the same. Raced to Rose and John’s side to help them. He hadn’t opened that stupid fob watch for her. He’d done it for them.

Martha’s gaze was once more drawn to the vista above and below, and in her heart she knew her decision. Still, before she did anything, she’d speak to Rose. Just to talk everything out.

 ********  
“Martha’s leaving.” Jack didn’t ask the question so much as state it. But the Doctor didn’t look surprised; though his eyebrow shot up, the truth lay in his dark brown eyes.

“I know.”

They were just outside the TARDIS, still on the overlook on Cheem. Jack was actually surprised to find the Doctor alone, considering he and Rose had made up. Or maybe they were working toward that making up part. Still it was steps and steps closer than where he and Martha currently were.

“Is she going back to her studies?” Jack asked, folding his arms over his chest and leaning not-so-casually against the TARDIS.

“Shouldn’t you ask her that?” the Doctor asked, clearly uncomfortable.

“As you may have noticed, she’s not talking to me.” Jack tried for flippant. It came out strangled and desperate.

“What happened, Jack?” 

In Jack’s experience, the Doctor didn’t do domestic. Shagging Rose, and the breakfasts together, and trips home to see family and friends aside (now that Jack thought about it that was pretty damn domestic) but this whole talking about feelings thing seemed more _Rose_ than _Doctor_.

“She asked me to open the watch,” Jack whispered, the words catching in his throat. “I refused.”

“Ah.” The Doctor cleared his throat and eventually asked, “Why?”

Jack shrugged and looked away. Embarrassed and ashamed and desperate. So desperate. “I was afraid. Martha told me she needed me. That she needed me to open the watch. That she needed me back.”

He cleared his throat and closed his eyes, but the scene played behind his eyelids like a horror film. He couldn’t turn away or stop the images or make them fit to what he wanted to happen, not to what actually had.

“I refused. I didn’t want to change. And I felt, even like that man, like that Jack; I didn’t want to change.”

“Change is scary,” the Doctor admitted, and Jack heard more than a platitude in those words. “It’s damn near terrifying.” He paused and added with a crooked grin. “So’s love.”

Jack let out a snort. “Yeah.” He breathed deeply of the fresh, clean air, the soil and trees and hint of rain. “She asked me, begged me to trust her and I didn’t. I told her she was crazy.”

The Doctor let out a breath like he’d been punched. “Ouch,” he muttered.

“Yeah.” Jack banged his head against the TARDIS and sighed. “Then she told me you, well John, and Rose were in danger.” He closed his eyes, but still that scene played in front of him. “I opened the watch then.”

“Oh, Jack.”

“Yeah. I opened the watch to save you and Rose, but I didn’t because the woman I love asked me to.”

“I called Alistair,” the Doctor said quietly. “She’s going to work for a special liaison branch of UNIT.”

“Oh.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Jack admitted. “Steal the TARDIS, go back in time, force myself to open the watch when Martha asks?”

The Doctor merely looked at him, that scathing stupid ape look his previous face had had down to a science. This face wasn’t bad at it, either.

“Or not.” Jack scrubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t know.”

“If you don’t want to lose her, you better figure out how to change with her.”

Jack stared at him, stunned. “When did you get to be so smart about relationships?”

The Doctor looked sheepish and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. “Ah. No. But it sounded like something Rose would say.”

Jack laughed, a true, free sound, the first laugh since leaving Broad Oak. “You married a smart woman.”

“The smartest,” the Doctor easily agreed. “Though why she puts up with me, I don’t know.”

“Love makes you do strange things,” Jack whispered. “Even return to Earth and join UNIT.” He grinned at the Doctor. “Think that Special Liaison thing has room for another person?”

“I’m sure it can be arranged.”

 ********  
“That’s your decision then?” Rose asked quietly as she helped Martha pack the last of her things. She bit her lip on the rest of that sentence…she wanted to change Martha’s mind, wanted her friend to continue traveling with them.

Which was selfish and self-centered and a lot of other self-things Rose knew would only stave off the inevitable. She didn’t ask. It was Martha’s decision and she’d made it. If there was one thing Rose would never push, it was her friend’s right to choose.

“Are you sure you won’t talk to Jack?” Rose tried, once more.

“I don’t know what to say to him,” Martha admitted. “I’m so-I’m so _angry_ and hurt and I know it wasn’t him but I feel like it was.”

Her hand came up to rub her chest, right over her heart, and Rose’s own heart hurt for her. She reached out and squeezed Martha’s hand.

“What about you?” Martha asked in a completely obvious change of subject. “Have you made any progress in contacting your family?”

Rose shook her head. The stab of guilt pierced through her and she embraced it momentarily before pushing it aside. It’d been only three days since her talk with the Doctor. Her nightmares had barely subsided, but being connected to him again—emotionally, physically, and through their link—helped.

“The Doctor was running a continual scan for cracks between universes, as well as any sign of the stars going out,” Rose said evenly, pleased when her voice didn’t crack with shame that it’d taken her this long to bring the subject up with him.

“He’s hooked up what’s left of the dimension canon to the TARDIS to use that as a signal booster,” she continued, “but still nothing.”

Martha pulled her into a tight hug. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Rose had the feeling her words meant more than not being able to contact the other universe and her family there.

“You keep in touch,” Rose said, throat clogged with tears. “I expect to hear from you at least twice a week.”

“You can’t get rid of me,” Martha promised with a watery grin. “I just need some time. I jumped from my life in the middle to life with the Doctor, then into this odd foursome when you and...”

Rose frowned when Martha couldn’t even say Jack’s name, but let it slide. She didn’t blame her. Couldn’t. Couldn’t eve make a snarky, flirty, very Jack like comment about foursomes.

“I just need a little time for me,” Martha finished sadly.

“We’ll visit,” Rose promised. “Plus I told little Keisha we’d be by for her birthday party next month.”

“No sonic presents!” Martha laughed, but it was as strained as Rose’s. “She’ll like that.”

Just then Winston leaped onto the bed and purred around Martha’s torso. She scooped him up and cuddled him close. “I’ll miss you, too, Winston.”

Rose swallowed back tears and helped Martha carry her luggage out of her bedroom and into the console room.

 ********  
They landed with the normal shudder, less than it had been but still so close to the same endearing fall Rose had to smile. Instead of the normal grins and laughs and touches, the four of them stood at their assigned positions and watched each other.

This was it.

Cardiff.

Martha had wanted London, but the Doctor had prevaricated—the TARDIS needed to refuel after being powered down for so long, and he’d prefer to get the date and time right rather than the location. Alistair and Doris agreed to meet them all here and drive Martha—and whomever else—back to London.

Arrangements had already been made for Martha—and Jack’s—place as a special liaison between UNIT and the Doctor, the Doctor’s former companions, and whatever else might pop up. There were several higher-ups who scoffed at such a position, but Alistair had ignored them all.

Plus he had the backing of a dozen or so other higher-ups who had, at one time or another, worked with the Doctor. Or had to clean up after him.

Rose licked her lips and watched her lover, her friend, and her sister. What had happened to all of them? They’d saved each other, yes, but at what cost?

With the silence as thick as fog between them, Rose took the Doctor’s hand and walked out of the TARDIS, Jack and Martha behind them. She turned to Jack first and hugged him tight. His duffle lay at his feet, hands stuffed in his pockets. He looked lost and alone and her heart hurt to look at him.

She pulled him closer. “Take care of yourself, Jack,” she whispered. “And don’t you dare disappear.” Rose pulled back and kissed him softly. “Go slow with her. She’s hurting.”

Jack nodded and walked over to the Doctor. Rose turned to Martha and hugged her, too.

“I expect a running report on all the cool new places you go,” Martha whispered, sounding close to tears. But then she took in a deep breath and swallowed hard. “And you tell me the second you find out you’re pregnant.”

She grinned then, a bright, beautiful smile that almost reached her eyes. “I still have a lot of studying to do for Gallifreyan-Human babies, but I fully intend to be there for the birth of yours.”

“You better be.” Rose smiled and felt some of the tension ease, some of the sorrow lift. “Who else would I ask to be my baby’s godmother?”

Martha grinned widely, and this time the smile reached her eyes, and turned for the waiting car.

Rose stepped back and automatically took the Doctor’s hand, watching her friends walk away. It hurt, and she suddenly had a whole new perspective on why the Doctor never went back, never talked about those who left.

Still, Rose vowed not to let that happen to Martha and Jack. She needed her friends, her family here on Earth. But for now, she needed time with the Doctor.

“Take me someplace magical,” she said as the car drove out of sight.

The Doctor pulled her close and held her, tucked her head under his chin and kissed the top of her head, one hand cupping the back of her head the other tight around her waist. He wrapped his arms around her as surely as he did his love, and she basked in it.

Rose leaned in closer, closer, and breathed deeply of her lover. The scent of him and the wool of his clothes (his jumper or his suit, always the same), and the double beats of his hearts beneath her ear; the open link between them that steeped her with love and want and need and (forever) them.

“Anywhere you want, Rose Tyler,” he whispered.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conversations on a…

**Beach**  
Hand-in-hand, he and Rose walked along a deserted cove. The sky overhead was a deep purple-blue, the ocean a sparkling turquoise green. The Doctor heard the sounds of native birds as they called to their mates and the breath of wind as it slowly wound through the private beach.

He tightened his hand on hers and tugged her just slightly closer. She willingly came, resting her head on his arm. Her breath sighed out and he felt her contentment across their bond. The faint pulse of utter happiness.

“What’s so special about Shallacatop?” Rose asked softly.

In an equally quiet manner, the Doctor briefly laid his head atop hers. He took another deep breath, smelled the midnight blue sand and the fresh not-quite-salt air, and Rose. Her unique scent under the light all-natural shampoo she used since before they’d become lovers, and the memory of the two of them earlier, tangled naked around each other in their bed.

“It’s a water planet, much like Earth,” he began.

Then he spoke of the natives, the Shallacatopians, and how they lived as one with the water. How they could breathe underwater for up to an hour at a time, amphibian-like as they were. The fish, the many-plumed birds overhead, the ritual during every hunt and before every meal.

“Can we go into the water?” Rose asked, still in that quiet voice, the soft contentment throbbing along their link.

The Doctor turned her to face him, tangling his fingers in her hair and kissed her. He needed her so desperately, afraid still to let her out of his sight, to let her leave him for fear he’d never find her again. Or she’d never find him.

No matter how bone-deep thrilled he was at her return, he didn’t know why the universe decided to grant them this favor. _This miracle._ For his Rose to find him on her first jump. He stretched out time, wrapped it around them and cushioned them and lost them in the confines of it. Drew out the kiss and lost himself in her, too.

“We can do whatever you want, my hearts.”

Rose sighed, moaned against his mouth, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and combed her fingers through his hair. She pressed closer to him, every move stretched and elongated in slow motion, yet too fast, every heartbeat that ticked by one less he’d have with her.

“I’ll never leave you,” she promised him, still flush against him, lips caressing his. “Because you’ll never forget me.”

“Do you want to live here?” the Doctor asked and shocked himself with the words.

He’d been planning to make love to her on the beach, the whisper-soft brush of wave to sand mixing with Rose’s sighs of pleasure. He’d been planning to show her how much he loved-needed-desired-worshiped her with his body and his mind wrapped around hers. He had certainly _not_ planned on having this conversation, one he’d put off for years.

A day after dropping Martha and Jack off in Cardiff.

“No, my Doctor, my love,” Rose said and pressed her lips to his. She took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes, her own brandy gaze darkening. “It’s beautiful and tranquil, yeah; a kind of peace that buries itself in you. I’d like to visit again, but I don’t want to live here.”

He nodded, accepted that, took that into his hearts and yet wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. He had all John’s memories and all his plans for raising a family on a horse farm much like Broad Oak. But the Doctor couldn’t tell if that was a human reaction or his own, wanting such permanence in his life—his and Rose’s.

And since when wasn’t the TARDIS permanent? It was his constant companion, his closest friend. Until Rose. But life on Her, life with Rose on the TARDIS, had taken an entirely new meaning. 

“Make love to me,” Rose begged and all thoughts of the future or where they’d live vanished from the Doctor’s mind.

She took his hands and moved them down her body to her breasts. Her nipples were already hard, and through the thin jumper she wore he tugged them, pinched them, swallowed her gasp of pleasure. He hadn’t let his baser, darker instincts take over, but oh, he wanted to.

Not today. Not here.

Here, he wanted her spread over the sparkling sand, the darkness of it contrasting against her pale skin as he tasted her, made her come with his mouth, made her beg for release then beg for more. For him.

His kiss was harder this time, greedy. He took and took and never, if they both lived another thousand years together, would it be enough.

Time snapped back into place, and he felt Rose shiver in his arms. His wife might not be time sensitive, certainly not like he, but she was so closely entwined with him on a primal level that when he brought them back to the natural flow of time, the slight aftermath of it always shot through her.

Taking her hand, he sank into the sand with her.

“I’ll make love to you on every planet we visit,” he promised, slowly pushing her jumper up her belly, his mouth kissing the newly exposed skin. “I’ll make you scream my name to a dozen, a hundred, different heavens.”

 ******  
Frozen lake**  
“Do you want to… _settle_ …somewhere?” Rose asked several days after Shallacatop.

The Doctor expected fear to lance through him, but was surprised that all he felt was a faint panic Rose wanted to leave him (and the TARDIS) and continue travelling without him. (He was broken after all, who really wanted to stay with him?)

They were ice skating on Pentha Prime, making lazy circles over the deserted (all right fine— _closed_ ) skating rink in the middle of the night.

The Doctor tightened his grip on her gloved hand and tried to catch her expression in the half moonlight. The sky was heavy with stars, each one brushing lightly over Rose’s face. She didn’t seem concerned, not through the faint pulse of their bond. But the Doctor did feel a kind of wariness. No—concern? Maybe?

“You brought it up,” she continued when he hadn’t answered her.

He stopped and gathered her close. The moonlight bathed her face in its pale glow, illuminating her eyes more so than normal. Breath trapped in his chest, the Doctor tried to find the words. Tried to tell her all she meant to him and everything she was for and to and with him. What he was, who he was, with her. Because of her.

“I want to be wherever you are,” he finally said with as much honesty as he’d ever felt.

“Why’d you bring it up?” Rose asked, and now he did feel her apprehension and confusion.

The Doctor paused before he answered, but once again he must’ve waited too long, because Rose continued. She wrapped her arms around him, looked him in the eye, and opened herself fully to him. Her mind blazed with love and warmth and acceptance.

He was utterly lost.

“You…on Broad Oak,” she began and chewed on her lower lip. Really, all he wanted to do was taste that lip, but he obligingly waited. “When you were John, I mean. You brought it up. You wanted to stay there, get our own place.”

She swallowed and cleared her throat. “Raise our family there.”

“I did,” the Doctor agreed.

He didn’t even bother with pronouns or tenses or anything of the like. If he’d been speaking purely Gallifreyan there were dozens of tenses for this sort of situation. Except not, since as far as he could tell no other Time Lord had ever been in a situation like this.

What was the point of the Chameleon Arch again? The original point, its original purpose. He couldn’t remember and didn’t bother with that now.

“I don’t think you understand, Rose,” he whispered, the truth spilling forth no matter what he wanted.

“I don’t think you understand—” And then it broke. Or he did. The hold he had on his emotions—on the fear and the panic and the hope. It all broke and he couldn’t stop the words. “How much I love you and can’t live without you and don’t even want to try. How broken I was before I met you. How you saved me and rescued me and hell, yes—put this broken Time Lord back together.”

Rose’s hands took his and held them gently between their bodies. Her hands over his hearts, his folded together over her single one.

“I’d give you anything,” he admitted in a ragged voice. “If you want to continued living on the TARDIS, that’s what we’ll do. If you want a cottage on Shallacatop or Woman Wept or the southern coast of Spain, it’s yours.”

He drew in a harsh, painful breath. “Anything you want, all I am, Rose it’s all yours. I’m yours. Always have been.”

“I just want you, my Doctor,” she whispered and it was a warmth of love in the cold night air.

She stepped back, hand in his, and tugged him to the side of the rink. It was a massive thing, and they’d been making small circles in the center of it, but now, along the edge of the ice, she turned and leaned against the railing.

“I believe,” she said with a mischievous smile he couldn’t deny, “you said something about making love to me under a thousand different heavens?”

 ******  
Boat**  
Rose lay on top of her Doctor, the late afternoon Mediterranean sun warming their bodies three thousand years before she was born on a boat that wouldn’t be created until then, either. So much for going native. She shifted just enough to stretch well-used, very well-loved muscles and look up at her husband.

“You’re going to burn all those freckles off,” she whispered, tracing them across his face and neck with her index finger. “And I happen to like those freckles.”

“You better,” he said, grinning without opening his eyes. One arm was folded beneath his head, the other lazily moved up and down her bare back. “You’ve spent enough time kissing them.”

“Hmm,” she agreed, kissing the hollow of his throat. One of her many favorite spots. “They’re mine.” She giggled then, one of the last weights of their time on Broad Oak lifting from her shoulders. “So’s the mole. And this shoulder.”

Rose trailed her mouth over his left shoulder, down his arm. “And this elbow. And these fingers.” She took his hand and, watching him through half-open eyes, slowly sucked each individual finger into her mouth.

“I’m yours, too,” she said and knew it didn’t take him any time at all to place the conversation from a week or so ago on Pentha Prime. “I don’t,” she said haltingly, “want to just be your Plus One, or the side kick, or whatever.”

“Rose, you’re my equal in everything.”

“I know.” She nodded and looking into his fathomless eyes, the fire and the storm and the loss breathtaking, almost as much as the love and possession and passion he felt for her. “I don’t know what my place is in this world. Before I met you, I was going nowhere fast. Then I was with you and it was fine, we were happy.”

His hand came from behind his head and cupped her cheek. “More than happy,” he whispered.

Smiling, she grinned at him, unable to contain that burst of happiness and love that swept through her and through their link. Rose leaned down and kissed him softly. “In the other universe I was in charge of alien first contact, I had responsibilities I never had before and the respect of the entirety of Torchwood.”

“Do you miss it?” he asked, and she’d have been a blind, stupid fool not to know how he waited on tender hooks for that answer.

“I miss mum and Mickey,” she admitted. “And Pete and Tony and Jake. I miss the responsibility, but there’s nothing.” She stopped and made sure she had his full attention despite his wandering hands. “Nothing I’d change.” Rose leaned forward and kissed him, drew the kiss out and made sure he understood with her mouth and her body and through their link how much she meant that.

“No where I’d rather be.”

******  
Bed**

“I got a text from Martha today,” Rose said as they lay curled around each other in their bed. The TARDIS had dimmed the lights so it looked like dusk in their room, the doors on the balcony opening to their usual view of Gallifrey.

“She settling in?” the Doctor asked, looking down at her from her perch against a pile of pillows. His hair was a wilder mess than normal, his eyes were bright and still possessive, even after making love with her for hours. And the bite mark on his neck sent a renewed thrill of lust through her.

“She’s going on a date with Jack tonight,” Rose said as his hand shifted her more fully against his body. “It’ll be their first since everything happened.”

Silent for several long minutes, the Doctor finally nodded. “I guess he’s taking it slow. Doing what she wants.”

Rose took a deep breath. “She also said Sarah Jane stopped by with an old friend of yours.” Rose looked up at him and gave a slight smile. “Doctor Liz Shaw?”

“Ah yes.” The Doctor nodded with a fond look on his face. “Brilliant woman, Liz. What’s she up to these days? Still with UNIT?”

Rose expected the Doctor to stiffen and pull away, but counted these questions as progress. She told him what Martha had told her about Liz and Sarah and Jo, and the special liaison stuff Martha was coordinating.

“Seems once a Doctor’s companion always a companion,” Rose said with a grin. “They’re forming a nice little group within UNIT, trying to do a more diplomatic approach than militaristic.”

“Good,” he said softly. “That’s what we need these days.”

Rose shifted again, looked away from him then back and took a deep, bracing breath. “I thought we could drop by. See what they’re doing.”

His gaze was sharp, and whatever he felt over their link had his brown gaze wide and stormy with faint traces of fear.

“No!” Rose rushed to reassure him, finally sorting out what his chaotic thoughts were as they jumped between them. “I’m not leaving you.” She narrowed her gaze. “We don’t have to go through all that again, do we?”

“Rose,” he breathed.

“Doctor,” she cut him off. “We’re married. Bonded. And…” she licked her lips. “And I want to talk again about having a baby. Not just the making of said child,” she added with a slight grin. “I mean really talk about everything—traveling with children, how long this pregnancy will be, all of it.”

She stopped, swallowed uncertainly, a flutter of unease in her belly. “But it’s…I want to see our friends again. I don’t just want to be your Plus One.”

“Rose Tyler,” he said and cupped her face. “You’re never just anything.”

His kiss was soft and tentative and sent a slow heat through her that turned her knees to jelly and made her whimper with need.

“You want to make sure to liaise with them?” he nodded. “Then that’s what we’ll do. But don’t do this because you think I think less of you.”

He lay back down flat on the bed and brought her face to face with him, sliding his hand over her hip and thigh to bring her leg over his own hip. His other hand propped his head up, but his eyes burned cold starfire into hers.

“You—” he shook his head. “Rose, you can do anything you want. Everything. That you stay with me, that you want to be with me.” He shook his head again and she swore she saw a sheen of tears in his eyes.

“I love you, my hearts.”

Rose, her breath caught somewhere in her chest, her heart full to bursting, kissed him. She had no words, nothing that meant all she wanted to say. Instead she switched to what little Gallifreyan she knew and sent as much love and affection and need across their link as she could.

Then she spoke his name, her name, theirs entwined, and the Gallifreyan word for forever he’d tattooed on their arms.

“I love you too, my Doctor.”


End file.
